Sixes & Sevens

Adam Green

Sixes & Sevens - Average, Based on 3 Critics

AllMusic - 60Based on rating 6/10

60

Adam Green, the Moldy Peach who's made a name for himself on the fringes of the singer/songwriter community with his playful, sometimes crude, sometimes sweet, lyrics, returns to Rough Trade for his fifth solo release, Sixes & Sevens. With 20 tracks, the album gives more than enough glimpses at Green's wide-ranging stylings and influences ('50s pop, country, folk, blues-rock, pop, even hip-hop), but it is this very range that is also detrimental. Green can certainly write a decent pop song, but his tendency to jump from one musical theme to another is more distracting and bothersome than anything else.

First, Adam Green was unsure of himself, an oddball troubadour with an acoustic guitar and a lot of weird ideas about what dolphins eat. The low fidelity of his first post-Peaches release, Garfield, belied his earnest lyrical delivery and uncertainty. Then he found himself a real studio and a string quartet and made Friends of Mine (2003), a glossy, dramatic affair that didn’t overwhelm or dilute the genius of his songs, the understated semi-conviction that keeps anything patently weird from going over the top.During the tour for Friends of Mine, Green played a show in the basement of Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church, and one of his opening acts was the then-unknown musical sideshow called Man Man.

It’s hard to imagine ex-Moldy Peach Adam Green’s dull, Strokes-style anti-folk appealing to anyone but his obliging friends and family. His bored delivery and ridiculous lyrics about peanut butter sandwiches and rich kids make his two-minute tunes on this 20-song binge stretch out painfully into what feels like forever. While When A Pretty Face could easily score a Wes Anderson scene, Green’s ill-conceived foray into stream-of-consciousness spoken-word rap on That Sounds Like A Pony should be reserved for use in CIA interrogations.